𝕿𝖆𝖊𝕶𝖔𝖔𝖐| 𝓿𝓪𝓶𝓹𝓲𝓻𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮| ¹⁸⁺

Preface

Taehyung was frustrated. He couldn't make the mind-word come out the way he wanted.

"JungKook", he coaxed, leaning on the an elbow and looking at him with those eyes that always made him almost forget what he was trying to say. They shone like brown spring leaves in the sunlight.  "Jungkook", he repeated. "Can you say it, lovely love?"

Taehyung looked back at him solemnly. He was so handsome that he broke his heart, with his pale, chiseled features and his dark hair falling carelessly across his forehead. He wanted to put into words all the feeling that were piled behind his clumsy tongue and stubborn mind. There was so much he needed to ask him. . . and so tell him. But the sounds wouldn't come yet. They tangled on his tongue. He couldn't even send it telepathically to him- it all came fragmented images.

After all, it was only the seventh day of his new life. Jungkook told him that when he'd first woken up, first come back from the Other Side after his death as a vampire, he'd been able to walk and talk and do all sorts of things that he seemed to have forgotten now. He didn't know why he'd forgotten- he'd never known anyone who'd come back from death except vampires- Which Taehyung had been, but certainly was no longer.

Jungkook had also told him excitedly that he was learning like wildfire every day. New pictures, new thought-words. Even though sometimes it was easier to communicate than others, Jungkook was sure he would be himself again someday soon. Then he would act like the teenager he really was. He would no longer be a young adult with a childlike mind, the way the spirits had clearly wanted him to be: growing, seeing the world with new eyes, the eyes of a child.

Taehyung thought that the spirits had been a little unfair. What if Jungkook found someone in the meantime who could walk and talk-and write, even? Taehyung worried over this. That was why, some nights ago, Jungkook had woken up to fine him gone from his bed. He had found him in the bathroom, poring anxiously over a newspaper, trying to make sense of little squiggles that he knew were world he once recognized. The paper was dotted with the marks of his tears. The squiggles meant noting to him. "But why love? You'll learn to read again. Why rush?" That was before he saw the bits of pencil, broken paper napkins. He had been using them to try to imitate the words. Maybe if he could write like other people, Jungkook would stop sleeping in his chair and would hold him on the big bed. He wouldn't go looking for someone older or smarter. He would know he was a grown-up.

He saw Jungkook put this together slowly in his mind,and he saw the tears come to his eyes. He had been brought up to think he was never allowed to cry no matter what happened. But he had turned his back on him and breathed slowly and deeply for what seemed like a very long time. And then he had picked him up, taken him to the bed in his room, and looked into his eyes and said, "Taehyung, tell me what you want me to do. Even if it's impossible, I'll do it. I swear it. Tell me.''

All the words he wanted to think to him were still jammed up inside him. His own eyes spilled tears, which Jungkook dabbed off with his fingers, as if he could ruin a pricelesss painting by touching it too roughly.

Then Taehyung turned his face up, and shut his eyess, and pursed his lips slightly. He wanted a kiss. But . . . "You're just a child in your mind now," Jungkook ago- nized. "How can I take advantage of you?"

There was a sign language they had had, back in his old life, which Jungkook still remembered. He would tap under his chin, just where it was softest: once, twice, three times.

It meant he felt uncomforable, inside. As if he were too full in him throat. It meant he wanted Jungkook groaned.

"I can't. . . "

Tap, Tap, Tap. . .

"Your're not back to your old self yet. . . . ."

Tap, Tap, Tap. . . .

"Listen to me,love. . . ."

TAP! TAP! TAP! he gazed at him with pleading eyes. If he could have spoken, he would have said, please, give me some credit- I'm not totally stupid. please, listen to what I can't say to you.

"You hurt. You're really hurting." Jungkook interpreted, with something like dazed resignation. "I-If I-If I only take a little. . . ." And then suddenly Jungkook's fingers had been cool and sure, moving his head, It at just this angle, and then he had felt the twin bites, which convinced him more than anything  he was alive and not a spirit anymore.

And then he had been very sure that Jungkook loved him and no one else, and he could tell Jungkook some of the things he wanted to. But he had to tell them in little exclanations-not of pain-with stars and comets and streaks of light falling around him. And Jungkook had been the one who had been able to think a single word to him. Jungkook was the one struck mute.

Taehyung felt that was only fair. After that, he held him at night and he was always happy.